


Her Own Hero

by TheFlashFic



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlashFic/pseuds/TheFlashFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months ago Iris West woke up from a coma with strange new abilities. Now the arrival of an enemy from her best friend's past reveals that those abilities might not have been meant for her, and the new life she's come to love might belong to someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is all thanks to a post on Tumblr by claireifythat. I haven't been bitten so hard by a prompt in along time, so here's this, unbetaed and slammed up here. It's AU, obvs, but reflects canon up until the mid-season finale, so expect spoilers. I get the feeling it's going to write itself pretty fast. 
> 
> Thanks again, person whose name I'm assuming is Claire.

_Without a Trace_

_by Barry Allen_

_It's been weeks since our last report of the thief I'm calling The Tin Man. No updates from police, no sightings, no nothing. It's becoming a troubling pattern: we get word about someone with unexplainable abilities, and then that person simply vanishes from the map._

_A cynic (and a few regular commenters here) might take those disappearances to mean that reports were wrong, the abilities never existed, and some ordinary robber was simply arrested and sent into the system. Me, I'm not a cynic. That's why I write this blog. Unfortunately being an optimist about seemingly-superhuman abilities leads me to some disturbing implications. If these people are real, if The Tin Man does exist in the way our witnesses describe, then where is he? Where is the Gas Man, or Lightning? None of these people have been arrested – CCPD records are public, and I have reason to know that none of them are in jail under their real names._

_Is it possible that something is happening to these people? Are they being evicted from the city by a police force that has no idea what to do with them, or is it something more insidious?_

_The police in Central City are good people. I find it hard to believe that they'd appoint themselves judge and jury over these supernaturals. And of course it won't surprise anyone to hear that I don't suspect The Flash of anything underhanded. So who does that leave? Is there some other force at work here that we haven't heard about yet? Someone policing the actions of the people who have been given incredible abilities and use them to do bad things?_

_I find the idea worrying. But I'd rather know, either way. The silence is the most unnerving thing of all._

_As always, chime in with your theories and ideas, and send in any reports of anything unusual._

 

* * *

 

Iris read the post twice before she sat back. Her eyes closed for a tired moment, and she reached out without looking and shut the lid of her laptop. She wasn't sure what the worst part was: that Barry had so much knowledge of so many of the metas she'd stopped, that he was sharing a lot of that knowledge with anyone with an internet connection, or that despite his open adoration of the person he called The Flash, he was starting to get so openly critical about the rest of it.

Her dad was going to be furious when he read the day's post. He had warned Barry time and again about using inside knowledge from his work with the CCPD to write his blog. But Barry was Barry, and when something was bothering him he never stopped to think.

The worst part was she didn't blame him.

The pipeline and the metas shut up inside of it were an ongoing debate between her and Wells. Catching these guys, that was one thing. Locking them away without oversight, stashing them in small windowless rooms in a broken-down particle accelerator, with no sentence, no release date, no nothing...that was troublesome. The dissertation Iris had started back before the accident and the coma was focused partially on the psychological trauma done to prisoners locked in solitary for even short periods of time. She knew full well that real damage was being done to those men.

If Barry knew the truth he'd be furious. She was furious herself, sometimes, that she was going along with it. But until she had an alternative to offer, there wasn't much choice. County jail and Iron Heights simply weren't able to hold on to metas.

Compromise, Wells said more than once. Extraordinary circumstances called for gray areas and constant compromise. Iris was starting to wonder more and more why all of the compromising was being done on her end.

The only thing that made her feel better about it was that her dad knew exactly what was going on. Wells had the morals of...well, frankly she wasn't sure what kind of morals he had, only that they weren't particularly high on his priority list, whatever they were. But her dad was the single best man she knew. He wouldn't let things get too bad.

As if he was summoned by her thoughts, there was a sudden pounding down the stairs and the man himself appeared, slinging on a jacket even as he pecked at his phone. It was a sight she had seen all her life, and even then it made her smile a little.

He saw her sitting at the table and waved his phone. “Break-in at some lab downtown, looks like some guards might have been killed.”

Iris stood up, leaving the laptop and her forgotten classwork behind on the table. “Should I get to STAR Labs and wait, just in case?”

He considered that as he approached her and opened his arms. “Nah. Might be routine, who knows? Sometimes regular crimes do happen, even here. I'll call if it looks like we need you.”

She drew back from his quick hug and eyed him dubiously.

He sighed. “I will call. Haven't I been better about it lately?”

“You have.” She kept her expression stern for another moment, but melted into a smile and gave him another quick hug. “Be careful.”

“You too.” He squeezed her tightly and let her go. The expression on his face, the flash of apprehension and the fierce blaze of pride, were as familiar lately as his having to rush off to some crime scene. "Bye, sweetheart."

“Bye, dad.”

She watched him go, and only when the door was shut did she turn back to the table. He wouldn't have had time to read the blog post yet, since Barry posted it less than an hour ago, but that was a good thing. Barry would probably be headed to the same call right now, no use adding to the tension between them.

Holding this family together was turning into as big a challenge as anything she did at STAR.

 

* * *

 

It all happened the way it did because of a cup of coffee.

Iris had been halfway home after filing a police report about the attempted stealing of her laptop, ready to call it a night and count her blessings that she hadn't lost the last few weeks' work. Also to back up her dissertation notes. In a few places. But over the radio came a brief news announcement about the particle accelerator being on and operational, and guilt made her turn the car around despite the crappy weather. She stopped by Jitters and picked up some coffee, and headed back to the station.

“What's this for?” Barry greeted her with his usual wide, sincere smile as she walked into his lab.

“You're missing your big night, and I have guilt issues.” She handed him the coffee and nodded at the TV he had playing on his desk. “Anything interesting happening?”

“Well. Obviously it's _all_ interesting--”

“ _Ob_ viously.”

He made a face at her, but grinned. “But it sees to be pretty uneventful so far.”

“Well.” She perched on the edge of the desk and he sat down on his rolling desk chair and pushed himself back enough to watch the screen. “I know you wanted to be there, so I'm sorry.”

“No, hey. It's not your fault someone tried to steal...”

She looked down at him. They'd been working on this.

He held up a hand, laughing. “Apology accepted.”

“Thank you.”

He looked back at the screen, at the reporter saying god only knew what about this giant machine that had been, apparently-incredibly, _turned on_.

Iris looked at Barry as the woman kept talking. She sipped her coffee, smiling to herself at the wide-eyed wonder on Barry's face as he listened to the reporter's absolutely nothing of interest. He really was at his most adorable when he was nerding out about something, and the particle accelerator had been high on the list for years, since the day it was first announced before they even started building it. 

She'd have to make some calls, see if there was some way to get a tour of the place or something. His birthday was coming up. Besides, just because he tended to instantly forgive her about any and everything, that didn't mean she had to take advantage of it.

The sudden blare of an alarm from the TV caught her focus. Barry sat up, his brow furrowing, as they watched.

“ _Wait, we are now being told to evacuate the facility. The storm may have caused a malfunction to the primary cooling system. Officials are now trying to shut down the particle accelerator, but so far have been unable to regain...”_

The station and the reporter fizzed out of sight, and the screen went staticky before going black.

Iris's eyebrows went up. “That doesn't sound good.”

“No.” Barry looked past the monitor out the window. The lab had an amazing picture-window view of Central City, which she always thought was a strange feature for a--

\--the view from outside lit up, bathing them with an orange glow as the sky rumbled.

Iris shot to her feet, shocked, watching with Barry as that glow, like a slow-motion explosion, shot up through the air from what had to be STAR Laboratories. Lightning from the growing storm seemed to join forces with the explosion, surrounding it with crackling flares of light, and then some kind of a shock wave suddenly raced from that explosion outward.

The power went out from the distant lab outward. Every light in view shut off in a widening wave, and then that wave caught up to the station and the room went dark around them.

“Oh my God,” Iris breathed, her vision spotted with light and shadow from watching that explosion too closely. “Barry?”

He was already moving, the wonder gone from his face and replaced with urgency. He moved under the broad skylight in the middle of the lab, grabbing the chains to slide the panel closed.

Iris looked back out the window as the lightning from the storm only seemed to get worse. “Maybe you shouldn't do that right now?”

“The glass could break if the...” Barry trailed off.

Iris moved to him, her stomach clenching in apprehension. “Hey, come on, you're right under the...”

Her feet slowed, her words stopped. Her mouth dropped open as she followed his stare to the beakers and bottles on the shelves around them. The liquid in those beakers was _rising_ , floating up and out spreading outward like something from one of those space shuttle videos they watched in school as kids. 

Barry was standing right in the middle of it, feet in puddles of rainwater from the leaking skylight, grasping those chains. 

Iris knew, quick as a flash, that something was going to happen. It was a crackle in the air as tangible as the lightning overhead, just as solid as the floating solutions around her on the shelves. 

“Barry! Get away from there!” 

He jumped at her voice, but grasped the chains and looked up, determined. 

Something rushed her forward, some instinct fourteen years in the making. Just as she sometimes used to close her eyes back in school and see grim predictions of Barry prone under a pile of bullies, she suddenly saw him flat on his back on the lab floor, twitching from a shock or bleeding from broken glass, or spattered with those floating chemicals. 

And, as she always had, she only knew she had to save him. He was hers, her family, her Barry, and she had never hesitated to jump to his aid when he needed her. 

“Are you crazy? Move!” Panic gave her the strength to tear his grip from those chains and shove him to the side. He stumbled against one of those shelves, dodging a cloud of green liquid floating near his ear. 

The chain he'd been holding swung lazily back towards her and she reached out. Not to grab, just to bat it away, or..what? She didn't know. She just moved, instinct making her push at the chain.

The world overhead went bright white, and a sizzling crackle shot down towards her. 

“ _Iris!_ ” Barry's voice was a hoarse shout. 

Iris couldn't answer. She couldn't move. Her entire body was gripped by something, her muscles all seizing. 

Whatever held her every muscle in its grip suddenly grabbed and flung her, and she flew backward. Everything was white, painfully bright, and in the distance Barry was screaming her name again. 

But Iris was gone. She was sucked into that light, flying up where everything was painful and crackling and white as pure sunlight, and when the brightness felt like it was starting to tear her apart, that's when it all shorted out and went stark black. 

And for the next nine months, the black was all she knew. 

 

* * *

 

The living room had gone dark around her, and Iris drew herself from her memories and rubbed at her eyes. She was wiped out. Jumping back into her studies after waking up had been enough of a push to tire her out, but now that she was spending her days on treadmills and in MRI scanners, or tearing around the city, facing down evil metas and playing the complicated game of helping her dad even as she avoided Barry and Eddie...

It was enough to exhaust anyone.

She was staring to seriously consider dropping her classes. As close as she was to having a completed rough draft of her dissertation, she was starting to wonder if the subject was right. Her experience with metas, the manifestation of powers as reflections of either their personalities or their direct activities at the time the particle accelerator blew... _that_ was worthy of a dissertation.

But then no one would actually believe that. Her doctoral adviser had an open contempt for what he called psychological fiction, which seemed to mean anything dramatic enough to actually be interesting. Her current thesis topic already caused enough friction, if she tried to dive into the analysis of metas he'd probably kick her out of the program entirely.

When she first woke up she was told to take all the time she had to take to get back into finishing her classes and writing the dissertation. She had ignored it. Maybe it was time to accept the offer.

Her dad would encourage it, she knew. Barry would encourage it. Take some time out for yourself, they'd say, just as they said as they moved her back into her dad's house so she wouldn't have to worry about getting her job back amid everything else that was happening.

At the time she'd resisted it. Her apartment was already gone, the lease run out as she slept, which was why she accepted the move back home easily. Her things were already there, she was broke, she had no choice. But as far as school went, she was still reeling from the loss of nine months of her life, and she had pushed the issue.

That was before she realized the extent of what the lightning had done to her.

It felt like weakness, just the idea of taking a term off. It felt like she was giving in somehow, saying she wasn't able to handle these powers she was given. Which was just her pride talking, she knew, but each time she faced a new meta and saw their snide reactions to her being the one standing in their way, her pride screwed up that much tighter.

Her phone beeped suddenly, and she let out a breath and grabbed it from the table. Text from her dad.

_Mercury Labs. Wait until I can come out and talk to you. This one is going to be...tricky._

Great. Tricky. Everything was tricky now, every single case, so the special warning had to mean something bad.

She stood up and stretched. She could feel the electricity coursing through her like an itch under her skin, still dormant but ready, knowing it was close to being called up.

She jogged upstairs to her bedroom, to the old locked trunk by her bed that she'd had since she was six or seven. It used to be crammed full of toys, drawings, costumes, the random clutter of a happy little girl. But as she lifted the lid now there was only the shelving Cisco had rigged up holding the thick folded red costume that she spent so much time in.

She trailed her fingertips over the limp headpiece, the stiff ridge that fit over her eyebrows. She did love the thing. Not as much as Cisco, of course, but it had been modified and shaped and designed around her, and she loved how she felt, and who she was, when she wore it. If something in her life had to take a back seat soon just to give her some time to breathe, it wasn't going to be this.

Iris smiled to herself and shook off her exhaustion, reaching for one of the pile of bands in the trunk to tie her hair back.

Time to go to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Iris discovers details about her current metahuman foe, and flashes back to when she woke from her coma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also Iris got no time for manpain, and this is why she's awesome.

Barry had a comic book phase his freshman year of high school, because of course he did. Luckily it was relatively short-lived, and already he knew better than to announce his dorky habits to the world. So Iris didn't have to intercept any fights because of it. But she did get the full blast of it, having to hear every little thing about every stupid comic almost every waking moment for a little over two months before the obsession waned and died out entirely.

Iris had flipped through some of them a few times in vague interest. Batman, Spiderman, Wolverine. The part that made Barry the most starry-eyed was usually the origin stories. There was something pretty cool, Iris had to agree, about a normal kid who wasn't big and strong suddenly being able to do these amazing things that even the strongest person couldn't do.

But Iris didn't associate with those kids the way Barry did. She had never been a puny dork who got teased. She knew alienation well enough – she was a black girl in a mostly white town, and that had an impact – but she didn't see herself in those pages. She understood why Barry did, but it had to stay one of those obsessions that she tolerated but didn't share.

She wondered if it was that old obsession resurfacing that made Barry so driven to write about The Flash.

Iris had encouraged his interest in ways that she shouldn't have: The Flash sent regular emails to the address on his blog, and he was utterly thrilled with the contact. She didn't write more than she should, she told herself. She corrected a few errors, asked him to take out certain details now and then. Less than she could have asked for, but she wanted to stay out of it as much as she could.

Her dad would have killed her for even those innocent emails. Ever since he first saw what she could do, they had sworn between themselves that Barry would never find out. He was already driven: that blog of his was years old, after all, full of every story of weird, unexplainable phenomena that he could find. Barry was obsessive, it was one of his defining personality traits.

They tried to leave him out of the entire meta situation, but Barry was a forensic tech. He went out to crime scenes and heard witness statements, and there was no hiding from him of all people that remarkable things were going on. Hell, Barry would have found supernatural explanations to normal crimes, there was no convincing him that nothing interesting was going on when people were found electrified into blackened hulks or choked to death on seemingly sentient gas.

It wasn't working. That was obvious every day, with every new case. Iris had been saying it for weeks, and her dad had stopped arguing back. This kind of deceit would blow up on them. She worried about that all the time, every time she and Barry talked.

But it wasn't until she got to Mercury Labs and saw her dad's face as he came out to find her that she realized just how badly things were going to fall down on their heads.

 

* * *

 

“It's a meta,” she said as soon as he was close enough to her hiding spot a couple of buildings down, away from the spotlight of cop cars.

He nodded. His face was grey, his mouth drawn downward sharply. “Well. Maybe. But if it is this one's been around a lot longer than the others.”

She frowned, waiting.

He sighed, looking behind him before taking her suited arm and pulling her back further from the street, deeper into shadows. “The witness said it was a blur. A blur in a yellow suit.”

Iris sucked in a breath.

Her dad nodded. “He heard it.”

Barry. Damn it.

“He's already talking about getting his mom's case files from the police department. He's fired up.”

She looked towards the building, at the grim red and blue lights casting their moving shadows as they circulated. “Are his mom's case files at the police department?”

“No.”

The grim sound of that one word made her look back at her dad. Her brow furrowed. “Where are they?”

“Missing.” Her dad sighed and scratched at his neck. “Look, I saw him once, couple weeks ago. The yellow blur. He was at the house, and he took the entire case. Files, evidence, everything we had.”

Iris drew in a breath, and another one, slow and steady. She fisted her hands. “And you didn't tell me.”

“No.”

“I told you, dad.” She backed up a step, trying to put a damper on her quickly rising anger. “I told you if you kept leaving me out of things, I'd set out on my own. One more thing, I said. And this meta was at our house?”

“He threatened to kill you.”

She hesitated.

Her dad's face was grave. It was grave way too often lately. “Not The Flash. You. My baby girl.” He frowned, glancing at his watch. “Look, I have to get back. I'm gonna have to keep a close eye on Barry. See if Wells knows anything about this place, this Mercury Labs. Witness says the guy in the blur was looking for something, maybe Wells will have some idea what.”

Iris nodded, but her anger hadn't entirely receded. “And at some point tonight you're gonna tell me everything about this, everything you've kept from me.”

Her dad frowned. He regarded her, and that sadness and pride that was always visible when he saw her in her Flash outfit were stronger than ever. “I've been a cop a long time, Iris. I've spent the last two decades with one priority – that the work stays at work and doesn't touch my family. Twenty years of that makes it more than just an instinct, okay? I'm trying to get past it, but sometimes...”

“I know. But things have changed.”

“You're still my baby girl. That's never gonna change.” But he backed up a few steps before turning and heading back out towards the chaos of cops and gathering crowds.

Iris moved to the edge of the building and watched him go, a strong silhouette against that spinning red and blue light.

Sometime she wished her dad had never seen her in action and realized what she could do. It brought too much stress, too much worry, and her dad had always dished out stress and worry in generous heaps as it was.

But mostly she knew that if she only had the STAR Labs team to confide in – nice as they were – she would have lost her mind by then. Joe West had always been the moral compass for Iris. There was simply no wiser, stronger, better man out there. She had faith in him that was rock solid, and these days it was the only solid thing she was able to grip.

Her dad knowing and supporting her, even if it sometimes made things way too complicated, was keeping her going.

 

* * *

 

Cisco Ramon's face was the first thing she saw when she woke up from her coma. She was in a narrow bed in the middle of STAR Labs, with a Beyonce song blasting from overhead speakers. (She learned later that Barry had made, and constantly updated, a dozen different playlists for STAR to play for her as she lay there, and she actually woke up during the Wake Up Iris playlist.) Cisco was studying something at her side, leaning down next to her with an absently crooked frown. A long-haired stranger with a face like a seventeen-year-old.

Iris felt...pretty good, actually. Stiff, kind of...hollow, like those days when she forgot to eat but was on her eighth cup of coffee by noon. As soon as her eyes opened she was instantly focused and aware, despite normally being a hard sleeper and a slow riser.

“Who're you?” she asked the guy leaning over her.

He jumped back with a broad, startled flail of hands, as if she'd physically shocked him. “Whoa! Oh my God, holy crap, hi, _Caitlin!”_ he bellowed without breaking eye contact with Iris. “She's up!”

Iris blinked around at the strange room, and then again at the utter _strangeness_ of the room. The equipment everywhere, the high tech set-up like something Barry might have dreamed up. She never for a moment thought that it was a hospital of any kind. Between her dad's job and Barry, whose constant enthusiasm was only overpowered by his clumsiness, she'd been to her share of hospitals before. They were cramped white-walled places with no space or privacy, and this room she was in now was like something out of a movie.

She sat up, tensing when she felt a tug on her skin. Diodes, attached to her chest. That was the first moment that fear became a tangible weight in her gut. “Where am I? What happened?”

“Hang on, I just...we need to... _Caitliiiiiin!”_

“Cisco! Stop that! Screaming at patients is an ineffective form of therapy, to say the least.” A woman appeared suddenly from around a corner, half blocked off by one of the computer set-ups stationed around the room. She was young too, lovely, tall, but with a stern set to her face that actually put Iris a little more at ease.

Iris sat back, bracing her hands against the mattress though she felt nothing worse than a few muscle aches. “Where am I?” she asked again.

“STAR Labs!” The guy, Cisco, was all but beaming at her now that someone who looked like an actual professional was in the room to let him off the hook.

“STAR...wait, how did I get back here? What happened?”

“ _Back_ here? Oh, right, the accelerator, Barry said you guys saw the beginning of that.”

“You know Barry?”

Luckily Caitlin held up a hand before Cisco could swing the conversation even further off course. “Iris. The night of the accelerator explosion there was an accident. You were struck by lightning.”

She would never admit it later, but Iris's hand instantly flew up to her head. Maybe it was some cartoon visual leftover in her brain of someone smoking and bald after an electric shock, but her instinct was to check, and her relief when she still had her full head of hair was real.

“You've been in a coma,” Caitlin went on. “For quite a while.”

“A coma? But I'm fine. I feel fine.” She swung her legs of the bed as if to prove her point, but let out a small squeak when she realized that her legs were bare. She frowned down at herself as she pushed the sheet back over her legs. She was wearing a nightgown, one of the casual flannel nightshirts that she only allowed Barry and her dad to see her in.

“No, it's true. Coma, total nothing, for like nine months. I was here watching.”

Iris's mouth dropped open. She could feel her face growing cool as blood seemed to drain from her.

Cisco caught her horrified look and misinterpreted it, turning a fierce shade of red. “Obviously I don't mean I just stood here watching you sleep, because that sounds like a whole _pile_ of creepy and I'm not, I promise. I mean a little _stack_ of creepy now and then maybe, but not intentiona--”

Caitlin reached out and put a hand on his arm, mercifully stilling his words.

But Iris's shock, and the words (' _nine months_ ') that boomed through her brain like an echo that got louder with repetitions, softened somewhat. He reminded her of Barry, a little. That awkwardness and the stumbling to cover it up. She pegged Cisco quickly and easily as a scientific-minded geek who just didn't have much practice socializing.

But after a moment the 'nine months' came booming right back, loud and strong, and she looked to Caitlin for verification.

“Just short of nine months. I'm sorry.”

“I feel fine,” Iris repeated weakly. She looked down at herself, at her legs under the sheets, her hands now fidgetting in her lap.

“It's interesting,” Caitlin replied to that. “We haven't had to disturb you; no exercises, rolling you, even stretching. Your body simply hasn't atrophied. No sign of muscular degeneration, no noticeable loss of bone density, mineral or vitamin deficiencies. Bed sores. Nothing. You've just been...in stasis, in a way. If you feel like you just woke up from a nap, that's how your body's vitals read too. It's fascinating, from a biomedical point of view.”

“Where's my dad?” Iris stared down at her hands, listening to that echo. Nine months. Nine months. Almost a year of her life, gone. Her birthday. Barry's birthday. Christmas had been coming up. Gone. “Where's Barry?”

“Oh, crap, I gotta call them!” Cisco dug a phone from the pocket of his jeans and hit a couple of buttons. He half-twisted away from them, but thought twice and turned back to Iris with a broad grin on his face. “Hey, Joe?” he said into the phone, chirpy and familiar in a way that made her chest clench. This stranger knew her father, called him Joe.

Nine _months_.

Then Cisco stretched the phone out to her.

Iris grabbed it and brought it to her ear. “Daddy?”

“Oh, God.” There was a pause, a choked breath. “Oh my god, Iris?”

Her eyes shut and she wanted more than anything in the world for him to be right there in front of her, reaching out with open arms. “Hi,” she said with a watery smile.

There were a few more choked breaths, and a jostle of movement, and then a strange new voice. “Iris?”

Her eyes opened. “Who is this?”

“Oh. Wow. This is Eddie, your dad's partner. We met...long time ago. Never mind, it doesn't matter. I'll drive him to you. The lab?”

“Apparently, yeah, STAR Labs.” Any resentment she might have felt at talking to someone besides her dad was instantly drowned out by gratitude. “Thank you. Barry too, please, Barry Allen, he's--”

“Oh, don't worry, I'll dig Barry out of his hole myself. Here, talk to your dad.”

She tried, but just listening to his near-frantic breathing and the way he said her name, over and over again, made her voice clench up in her throat and her vision dissolve into liquid.

It was somehow worse when they actually arrived. In her mind Iris had seen her dad earlier that same day, but looking at him, noting that he'd lost weight and his goatee was a little greyer at the chin and his eyes were a lot darker, made ' _nine months'_ utterly undeniable.

He ran at her, though, and he hugged her tightly enough that she actually started to feel more even about everything. Nine months, sure, but her dad was right there, and he still hugged her like she was his world, so. Maybe nine months wasn't everything.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, hugging her shuddering dad for dear life, when Barry came in. He was walking with another man, who she remembered the moment she saw him. Detective Pretty Boy, Eddie, right. She only glanced his way, though, before focusing on Barry.

He seemed nervous and tense when he walked in, and she only found out later it was because she had actually 'woken up' a couple of times before, but it was only her eyes opening. Her brain never kicked into gear, and Barry was scared to get his hopes up again.

In the instant that she saw his face before he saw her up and hugging her dad, she felt something in her chest cave in. He looked terrible. Just like her dad he'd lost weight, but Barry had never had any extra weight to lose. He'd always been rangy and too thin anyway. There was something else, though, something more noticeable than his sharper cheekbones: his animation seemed to be drained down to nothing. His feet dragged as he came in, and he seemed to still be moving in slow motion, at least compared to the Barry she knew so well.

Her gaze locked on his, and she gave a watery grin from where she was pressed into her dad's shoulder.

His mouth dropped open. His eyes seemed huge with the dark shadows making them stand out. But even as she couldn't help but catalog everything wrong with him, his gaping mouth curled upward, and his dull face lit with a glow.

The new cop, Eddie, leaned in to him with a huge grin and said something to him that Iris couldn't hear, and Barry hardly seemed to register it. He started moving, leaving Eddie behind, passing Cisco and Caitlin without a glance.

Iris drew back from her dad as Barry approached, and her eyes went to her dad's face. She laughed and it came out a sob when she saw the tears streaking down her dad's beaming face. Nine months, she thought, and this time she saw it in her dad's eyes. Nine months, God, he must have been a wreck.

Barry reached them, and her dad glanced over at him and took a step back, and suddenly he was right there, throwing his arms around her and shuddering.

Iris hugged him tight, her eyes shutting again. Nine months. She'd never been away from either of these men for anything like that long, not since Barry moved in as a kid. Not even when he was away at college, since he found every excuse to come home and visit. For her it didn't feel like any time had passed at all, but she wondered how they'd managed.

She glanced back at Eddie, standing at a distance, smiling broadly. She had a feeling, from the way he'd grabbed the phone from her dad and drove them both to the lab so fast, that she was going to owe Pretty Boy a few thank-yous for taking care of her guys while she was asleep.

Her dad stood close, his hand still on her arm, smile blasting down as he watched his two kids hugging. Iris grinned at him, stroking Barry's back soothingly and trying not to notice how bony that back was. When she finally drew back she had to wipe away a few tears of her own.

Barry drifted back half a step, but didn't take his hands off her completely. They lay at her sides, barely touching her, as if he was scared to let her go entirely.

She sniffed and reached out, wiping moisture off his face. She tried to fix her usual tending-to-Barry look of maternal disapproval to her face, but she couldn't stop smiling.

“You're okay?” Barry sounded hoarse. “You look so great, how can you look so great?”

She answered with a damp laugh. “You'd have to ask my doctors.”

Her dad turned instantly, seeking out Caitlin and Cisco. He crossed the room in huge strides, and they smiled as he came. “You two. You two beautiful people.”

Caitlin seemed taken aback behind her smile when he hugged her, but Cisco just beamed and hugged him back.

“Where's Wells? I owe that cagey jerk a hug, too.”

Cisco pounded his back, looking tiny against her dad's solid height. “I called him, he should be up soon.”

Iris tuned them out, looking back at Barry. “Nine months,” she repeated, her smile dimming a little. She believed it by then, but confirmation wouldn't hurt.

Barry nodded. His smile vanished, though his eyes didn't take on that strange dullness he'd had when he walked in. “They took good care of you here. We came by all the time, every day. I was here this morning before work.” He searched her face, wiping his eyes absently. “I've been reading you your criminal psych textbook, hoping you'd get bored and tell me to stop.”

She laughed, laying her hand over his where it rested against her arm. “I'm okay. I mean, I don't know what happened, they said lightning, but I feel really great.”

His face clouded. His eyes dropped away from hers, and when he smiled in the next moment it was wan and fake. “Lightning. Yeah.”

She sat up straighter, frowning. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “You're awake, that's what we should be thinking about. You've got a lot to catch up on out there, and...”

“Barry.”

He dragged his eyes up to meet hers.

“You know how sometimes you do that thing where you feel bad and you dwell on it and obsess and try to keep it to yourself because you think wallowing in it sounds fun?”

Barry smiled faintly, this time sincere.

Iris nodded. “And what always happens when you do that?”

“You hit me until I tell you what's going on. And I remember that I'm not really into wallowing after all.”

She smiled, satisfied.

He sighed. “You were four feet away from me, Iris.”

Her smile faded.

His eyes lost their glow, looking dull and haunted again. “You pushed me away, like you knew something was going to happen. And it did happen. To you. You died. Your heart stopped beating when I was shouting for help, and when the ambulance got there, and at the hospital. Over and over again, you flatlined. They wouldn't let me come in with you, they wouldn't tell me anything until your dad got there, and...I had to call him, and tell him, and tell him it was my fault, and you wouldn't wake up. For hours, then days, then months. Nothing.”

Iris watched the tears slip down his face as he went on, and wondered if he was even aware of them. She reached out, grabbing his hand and holding it tightly. “I'm awake now,” she said firmly.

“Yeah.” He smiled through his tears. “You are.”

She grinned as he pulled her into another hug, sliding her arms around him again and resigning herself to the fact that this was probably going to happen a lot for the next little while. Poor her.

Truth be told, she gripped him a little too hard, and every little shiver that went through him made her want to give in and start crying herself. But she didn't. There would be time for that later.

“Iris...” He spoke against her hair, his voice soft. “I...”

She let out a breath. “One time. You can say it one time, and that's it. So savor it.”

He breathed out a shaky kind of laugh. “I'm sorry.”

She drew back. “Noted.”

He did look relieved as he stepped back and scrubbed at his wet face. “And thanks for not letting me wallow.”

“I'll second that.”

Iris looked past Barry at the man who'd driven them over, Eddie. She smiled. “Detective...Thorne?”

“Thawne. Call me Eddie.” He flashed an easy smile and held out his hand. “It's really nice to meet you all over again. You have no idea how glad I am that you're awake.”

She shook his hand, returning his smile. Pretty Boy was definitely a fitting nickname. She wondered if anyone still called him that. “Thanks. For getting them over here.”

He threw a familiar arm around Barry's shoulder. “Thank me by cheering the two of them up a little bit, we'll call it even.”

She glanced at her dad, who was still talking to Cisco and Caitlin though his eyes were on Iris across the room like he couldn't quite look away. She smiled at him, and his answering grin was so broad she almost laughed.

“My pleasure.” She turned a smile back to Eddie, but her eyes caught on Barry instead, and the sad smile on his face. She reached for his hand and gripped. “My pleasure,” she said again, soft.

Barry squeezed her hand and smiled.

And then a new voice spoke out, and everyone's eyes went to the door.

“Well, well. Looks like we're having a little party in here.”

She had seen Harrison Wells once before, on stage giving a speech before some creep tried to steal her laptop and ruined the night. Now he came up in an electric wheelchair, his eyes tense as he looked around at everyone. Smiling, she noted, but tense.

“And with good cause,” he said as he approached. “Miss West, I'm pleased you've finally joined us.”

Iris glanced around. Her dad and Cisco and Caitlin stood watching, looking proud and happy. Eddie watched Wells approach with the polite, formal smile of a near stranger, but Barry was grinning at him, instantly excited.

Wells' eyes stayed on Iris, though, and when she looked back at him he just raised his eyebrows and waited expectantly.

She smiled, uncertain, getting the feeling that he was looking for something more in her than she knew how to give. “Dr. Wells, right? I hear I owe you a thank you.”

“Don't worry.” He smiled, and it was a totally normal, pleasant-enough smile, but there was still that edge behind it that she just couldn't read. “We'll have plenty of time for that now that you're awake.”

 

* * *

 

 

She loved to run.

Those were words Iris West never would have imagined herself saying. She played sports in school, of course, and she'd made regular visits to the gym to burn off everything she ate working at Jitters before the coma, but it was all perfunctory. Obligation. She liked some aspects of keeping fit, but any cardio that wasn't on a dance floor was something to be suffered, not enjoyed.

But oh how she loved to run now.

Her speed had two settings, or at least that's how she'd come to think about it in her head. There was an internal setting and an external. She could run full speed and the city would become a blur around her, the lights streaking past as she flew through the streets. That was the internal setting, when the world went on normally around her, she just blew past it, faster than everything. A run from one end of Central City to the other took moments.

Then there was the external setting, when she could slow herself down in the midst of her running, when she could stop, stand there, look around, and the powers seemed to be affecting everything but her. The world was still, the cars barely moving on the road, the people stuck in position like perfect statues. If she tried running across the city in that setting she'd get where she was going at the same time as setting one, but to her those moments would seem to take hours.

There was a conscious switch between the two, something she did naturally, without even knowing how it worked. She used both settings in turn, flinging herself across the city on setting one, and using setting two to fix whatever was broken when she got where she was going.

And she loved it. Either setting, either speed, whether the world was a blur around her or she was simply walking alone through a frozen landscape, she loved it. It was solitary, yeah, but even that was something she had come to appreciate. Like Barry's comic book heroes, she felt powerful and strong when she used her speed. She felt rightfully alone, because she had this gift that no one else had.

Her. Iris West. Motherless daughter of a hard working cop. Black, female. Very different from those men in the comics. Iris West could do this, and no one else could.

She had always been confident. Joe West didn't raise children who didn't believe in themselves. It was just that now she felt remarkable.

Running like this, like she was now, wasn't exercise. It was how her body was supposed to move. She was getting to the point where if she didn't use her speed for a day she started to feel itchy and unsatisfied. The closest she could come to a similar feeling were the times when she'd suddenly st up from studying and realize she hadn't moved in four hours and her body had adopted an unnatural slump. She'd sit up and stretch and feel this ache of satisfaction as her body came back to life.

That was what the running did for her now. Sometimes she'd catch herself whooping from the sheer joy of it.

She made the run to STAR Labs enough that she used it to test herself. She slowed and sped up at different points, she batted through traffic and around curves. She went on the highways or cut through abandoned factories. It was a way to learn Central City, and the areas around the Lab were the parts she was getting to be most familiar with.

“We've gotta get you watching some parkour vids on YouTube next,” was how Cisco greeted her that particular night, as she streaked her way in from Mercury Labs. Worried about Barry, about this meta in a yellow suit, but still beaming when she pulled up because God, it felt great to run.

She just rolled her eyes at Cisco, though. “I can literally run up and down walls, why would I need to learn how to jump over them?”

“Because it would look _so freakin' cool_. I could make a new suit, a black one, and you could be the world's fastest ninja.” He was sitting at the computer, doing a dozen things with his hands as he talked, probably all entirely unrelated to each other.

He was scattered, Cisco was, and sometimes his failure to take things seriously was a source of friction between them. But man, he was brilliant.

Since she knew he'd never mess with the suit he loved so much, she just laughed. She tugged the headpiece loose, slipping it off her head as she moved through the lab. “I've told you what your next project on the suit is.”

“Hair, right. I'm working on it. I've gotta find a way to let you keep your 'do that's aerodynamic and still disguises you enough to, you know, be a disguise. It's not as easy as it sounds.”

Iris glanced at her reflection in one of the unused monitors she passed and she sighed at the stern bun she'd had to pull her poor hair into. Every damned time.

“Iris.”

She turned.

Wells rolled in, his usual smile in place. “What brings you here so late? Something to do with Mercury Labs?”

She didn't bother to ask how he knew. “What do you know about that place? What would a meta be sniffing around trying to steal?”

“Any number of things, I'd imagine. Mercury is very much like STAR used to be, with I'd guess as many secrets as we have now. They're good, they were our competitors for a long time. The particle accelerator was supposed to win that rivalry for STAR, but...” He shrugged, going back behind the desk where Cisco sat. “We all know how that turned out.”

“I'm trying to get into their computers,” Cisco told Wells as he pulled up. “But they're wrapped up pretty tight. Hacking was never my strongest skill.”

“What do we know about this new meta?” Wells looked from the screens Cisco was working on to Iris.

She hesitated at that. With a frown she clicked her body into her second speed setting, and Cisco's busy hands stilled as she turned and headed for the suit room. She changed from her suit into one of the many sets of clothes she had stashed there for these occasions, shaking her hair out of its tie and smoothing it down to something flat and boring but better than the death bun.

By the time she headed back out to the front, she still wasn't entirely sure of her answer. She frowned at Cisco and Wells, still exactly as she'd left them. It wasn't that she didn't trust them. She did. Even Wells, whose relationship with her could swing hot to cold unexpectedly and for reasons she never understood, had earned her trust a dozen times over.

But this was the past catching up. This was the boogeyman who had haunted her best friend since he was eleven. She'd heard Barry tell the story a thousand times over. She'd seen him cry when he was ignored or laughed at, when the kids at school taunted him about monsters in his closets. When his dad went to prison because nobody listened to him. She was woken up by his nightmares year after year, when that boogeyman came to him in his sleep and killed his mom again and again.

All she had to go on was a blur in a yellow suit, but it meant more. And she wasn't sure how much of that she wanted to share with STAR. She wasn't sure she wanted to make it real.

She sighed and shook herself of her speed, clicking it off with that indescribable mental switch. Cisco pecked at the keyboard without missing a beat, and Wells just blinked in vague surprise that quickly faded when Iris suddenly appeared in a different outfit.

Simple fact of the matter was that if this was Barry's monster come back, she needed all the help she could get. And if it wasn't then it was another meta with super speed, and that would be challenge enough in itself.

So she dropped into a chair at one of the unused computers. “Witness just described him as a blur.”

They both looked up at her. Cisco's hands kept moving, but they slowed down after a moment. “Wait.”

“In a yellow suit.”

“That sounds familiar,” Cisco muttered, frowning back at Wells.

She nodded. “We'll have to wait on my dad for more details, but that's what I have to go on.”

“Okay...well, I've been working on a way to track--”

The door from further inside the labs slid open, and Caitlin strode in with her phone in her hand. “Guess who I just got a call from.”

Iris groaned. “Already?”

“Barry seems to think that the mysterious faceless man who killed his mother fourteen years ago is back in the city.”

“And he wants you to help find him?”

“Me and Cisco.” Caitlin set her phone down and moved back behind the computers, frowning down at the screens Cisco was working on.

Iris rubbed at her eyes. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but with all the running she did her eyes were chronically dry and tired. “I never should have encouraged you guys to stay friends after I woke up. All we need is for him to have a reason to start spending time here.”

Cisco frowned up at Iris, but went back to work without a word. She already knew what the look meant, anyway. Cisco was the biggest spokesman for telling Barry the truth about everything.

He frowned suddenly, shoulders straightening. “Hang on, I may have something here.” He pressed a few buttons, and the screen from one of his monitors duplicated upon the big screen on the wall. He nodded their attention to it. “I've been working on a tracking system that picks up speeds over 300 miles per hour, mostly as a way that we can track you if you have to go out without your suit.”

Iris nodded, watching the screen. It was an undetailed map, and a red flash was currently streaking through the city.

“Someone's going about six hundred miles per hour right now, and it obviously ain't you.”

She frowned and approached the map, but even as she moved the rec blip disappeared.

Caitlin moved around and sat at her screen. “Hang on, we can pull up the location it vanished.”

“Yeah, if he stopped the sensors would lose him.” Cisco and Caitlin worked together, hands overlapping occasionally, and the map zoomed in on a street, an intersection.

A familiar one. The police station. The speedster stopped right in front of the CCPD downtown office.

Iris straightened. Was this is? Was this Barry's entire horrible past coming back? Did she have a real chance to right a wrong that was done so many years ago?

Without more than an unconscious thought Iris sped back to the suit room and changed right back into her clothes, tying her hair back grimly.

When she streaked back to the computer room barely a second had past.

“At least there's plenty of security cameras in the area we can tap into.” Cisco got a screen up, and even as he nodded her attention to it his face blanched pale. “Oh, man.”

She turned, but even as she did she realized exactly what she was going to see.

There he was. On the security camera he was a pixelated blur, but the yellow suit was unmistakable, and suspiciously similar in design to her red one.

But what caught her eye and her entire focus was who the man in yellow was currently staring down.


	3. Chapter 3

Barry was already fuming when he looked out the window to the lab and saw a yellow-clad form on a neighboring rooftop, staring right back at him.

He drew in a breath as the figure seemed to look at him then suddenly vanished. Streaked away in a burst of horribly familiar red lightning.

Barry backed away from the window, and though he knew he was too late to even think about catching the guy, he took off out the door to the lab and down the stairs to the first floor of the station. The man had waited for Barry to see him for a reason, maybe he wasn't going very far at all.

If he'd been thinking he would have grabbed his phone, a camera, a wire tap, something. He was going after something, someone, that nobody in the world had ever believed existed. Nobody except his dad, who was trapped in prison for a murder this creature had committed. Even now, even when there was so much activity in Central City that seemed beyond explanation, still no one took him seriously. Joe had even warned him a few times lately to stay away from his mom's case entirely.

Nobody discouraged him more than Joe, and it was wearing him down. Now he'd been told that his mom's case files were mysteriously missing, and Barry was already ready to explode.

And the Man was nearby.

He charged out of the station, ignoring everyone around him. If anyone called his name he didn't hear. If he knocked anyone back in his run down the stairs to the street he didn't even notice.

He looked up and down the street, trying to figure out where a malicious evil man in a bright yellow suit would have gone to wait. Probably some alleyway, some dark corner, some trash pile, where garbage belonged.

Barry's hands were fists as he looked around. He moved without any certainty, reaching the edge of the station building and hesitating before moving back behind the station. There was a police car parking lot back there, and lots of cameras, but maybe the Man was too evil to be smart.

And then there he was. A charge of red lightning passed him, and when Barry wheeled around the Man in Yellow was only a few feet behind him.

“It's you.” Barry's words were harsher than normal. If not for the shock of actually seeing the Man he might have been shouting. “You killed my mom.”

The man was...blurry, somehow. Doing something with his body that made his features unidentifiable. Like a picture that was too out of focus to be recognizable. But his face shifted, and Barry had the awful, infuriating suspicion that the Man was grinning at him.

“Let's play,” the man said, and his voice was as otherworldly as that blur of a face. “Catch me, and I'll answer all your questions.”

And then he was gone. A blast of lightning, a breeze of air, and there was no one there.

Barry screwed up his hands, wanting to scream. The man was just gone, how did he expect Barry to catch him? Was the whole thing some kind of game?

But no, just a moment later the blur was back, the Man rushing up to him. “I said catch me!” He streaked away, but was back within a blink of the eye. “If you ever want an answer, Allen, run.”

He vanished and then reappeared once more in an instant, and he seemed to be getting angrier.

Barry could only stand there, frustrated enough to make his eyes burn. “Stop!”

A tremendous burst of pressure against his stomach suddenly sent Barry flying back, hitting the ground hard, and when he looked up the Man was crouched over him. “Run!”

Barry gasped for air, hands trying to protect his aching stomach. There was a burn in his chest that might have been his ribs. “Who are you?” he asked, frustration pinching at his voice.

“Run!” The Man growled, an echoey, horrible sound. He lunged at Barry, a blur of movement and then his foot was in Barry's side, and Barry had been beaten up before – by kids, bullies, in school – but it was nothing like this. The snap that felt like bone giving in, the rattle of air he tried to gasp in, the way his body lurched with the kick, dropped to the sidewalk, and then refused to obey his brain entirely.

Barry just laid there, eyes blurring from the pain of it, helpless anger drowning out every other feeling. The Man straightened up, nothing recognizable in his featureless shiver of a face.

“I said _run_!”

“Hey!”

The Man glanced back, then turned around entirely.

Barry squinted past him, and shock made the pain from that horrible super-speed kick to his side fade back.

It was The Flash. He knew it instantly, though he hadn't seen more than a glimpse of the red streak passing him by before.

Smaller and slighter than he'd guessed based on witness statements, but she – it was a she, her shape was undeniable, and Barry had an absurd moment of relief that he'd let Iris shame him into using gender-neutral pronouns on his blog after the first few sightings – stood strong, blurred and otherworldly just like the Man himself.

The Man seemed just as stunned. “What is this?”

“You want someone to chase? Try chasing me.” She was doing something with her voice, not quite as distorted as The Man's was but a similar effect.

There was a split second where Barry thought she was looking at him, but suddenly she blurred and took off. The Man charged after her almost instantly.

And they were gone.

It took him a long, painful time to get to his feet, to stagger out from behind the station and up the stairs to go inside. It was late, he didn't expect to see any very familiar faces, but even as he moved through the door there was a call.

“Barry!”

Eddie. Barry sagged in relief.

Eddie was there a second later, arm circling Barry's waist as he helped him to a chair. “Jesus, what happened?”

“It was him.” Barry dropped into the chair with a huff of relief that made his ribs hurt that much more. “Eddie, it was _him._ I was two feet from his face.” 

“Who's 'him', Barry?” Eddie leaned over him, inspecting him carefully. “Is anything brok--”

“ _Him_ him! The man who killed my mother!” 

Eddie drew back. He frowned, searching Barry's face. A moment later he straightened up, tugging his phone out. “We need to get you to a hospital.” 

Barry sagged back, not bothering to argue. 

Eddie was a good friend. Maybe his best friend short of Iris. He'd been a life-saver after the lightning put Iris in her coma. He worked shifts for Joe, he kept Barry company. The guy Barry wrote off after the first meeting as vacuous and cocky became the rock that kept Barry and Joe going. 

As Iris lay unconscious and time went on, as panic died down into guilty numbness, he and Eddie actually talked. Barry was surprised that he grew to like Eddie so fast, and utterly shocked that Eddie seemed to like him just as much. Barry had never been very good at making friends, and with the cops he saw at work every day it was ten times worse. 

But Eddie was smart, and funny. He had his own shadows, his own edgy past. He laughed to Barry about spending his entire life through high school being dismissed as the fat kid, until puberty hit and he grew six inches and from then on he was nothing but handsome. “It was better, don't get me wrong,” he told Barry, who had never been fat or handsome, had always just been the nerd with the killer dad. “But I didn't feel like nothing but a fat kid, and I don't feel like a pretty face now, and it's strange when people reduce me to that.” 

So yeah, they had things in common, and they talked easily. Eddie listened to the rages brought on by Barry's guilt and depression, and gave Barry boxing lessons as a way to channel his emotions. In return Barry took him through some of the forensic processes that fascinated Eddie, and kept him company for hours on the nights when the job went bad. 

He told Eddie about his mom and dad, of course. After a few months he even told him the truth, about the lightning and the man inside, things he normally didn't share with cops he got to know. But Eddie went to Joe asking questions, and Joe of course stuck to the official child's-imagination explanation, and Eddie never seemed to fully believe either of them. Barry figured out after a while that, like with Joe, it was easier to just not talk about it. 

Now, though, now he had proof. Not anything he could show Eddie or Joe or the cops, but he had the marks on his body, whatever damage was done to his ribs. He was hurt, someone did that, that wasn't his imagination. 

Something was happening in Central City. Something that even Joe was having a hard time denying lately. Whatever it was brought this killer back, and Barry was going to make people believe it this time, or die trying.

 

* * *

 

He was faster than her.

That was apparent in a matter of seconds. He caught up to her almost at once, and then he flew past her easily, darting his way through traffic and around buildings like he'd done it a thousand times before.

Iris was furious, remembering Barry on the ground, helpless and scared and trying to face down this lunatic bravely. Nobody hurt Barry Allen. Not anybody. She didn't care how long he'd been around or what kind of powers he had, he went after the wrong target.

So she ran after him, flew as fast as she'd ever flown before.

“Holy crap,” Cisco said in her ear as they went. “This guy is legit.”

She didn't bother voicing her agreement. It was all she could do to match his twists and turns, to keep from running headlong into cars or causing damage by passing people too closely. She didn't even notice where they were headed until the streets started looking especially familiar.

“Umm, is he going where I think he's going?” Caitlin asked, softer in her headpiece than Cisco, as usual.

“Looks like it,” Iris said, grim when she realized why she knew those streets. She darted to the side suddenly, swinging widely off his course enough that he'd see her in his peripherals.

She had no idea if he knew about STAR Labs or was just headed there in the strangest coincidence ever, but then coincidences were getting harder and harder to believe in the more she lived this secret life of hers.

Iris didn't want this Man anywhere near the lab.

She didn't have to wait long to see if he followed. He was a streak at her side, and then he reached out, shoving at her to push her off course. She veered enough that she didn't lose her footing, but slowed to a stop anyway. He wanted a confrontation, fine.

He stopped a few yards away, and she studied him closely. He was blurred, and she knew the trick well enough. She'd done it herself a few times when she had to speak directly to people she was helping. It was disconcerting to look at.

“Who are you?” the Man asked. Demanded, really.

Iris hesitated. “They call me The Flash.”

“No. I know The Flash, you're not...” The Man edged closer, studying her. “The girl.”

Too late she realized she might be better off blurring her own face out.

“Oh my god, you're the _wife_. No, no, this is wrong. Something's changed.” 

“You guys getting any of this?” she murmured into her mic. 

Cisco all but whispered his response. “A little. Did he say you're his wife?” 

She didn't answer. The Man seemed to be stuck on his thoughts, she wanted to hear as much as she could. 

“Why did it change? Why would _you_ of all people get this instead of him? Something I did...something you did.” His eyes, glowing red in the fog that was his face, locked on her. “I changed the past, and you changed the future. Congratulations, Mrs. Allen.” 

She blinked at that. 

But the Man took off before she could say anything. He was gone, a streak into the darkness, and she would have followed but she was close to the lab, and whatever the hell was going on needed time to process. 

Because what in the  _hell_ . 

 

 

* * *

When the curtain parted, Barry's half-dazed grin appeared and then faded. He'd expected Eddie to come back with the promised coffee, but coffee wasn't what Eddie brought with him.

“Joe?”

“Hey, kid.” Joe looked tense, wired, and his eyes scanned Barry all over as he approached the little cot Barry laid on. Eddie hung back by the curtain, his eyes on them both, completely unapologetic as Barry glanced back at him. “I hear you're gonna live.”

Barry nodded, his eyes drifting back to Joe a beat too slowly. “Nothing broke, just cracked. Ribs and shoulder. Gotta tape me up. Back at work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I doubt the doctor actually suggested that kind of timeline.” Joe seemed strangely hesitant as he approached. “Barry. The person who did this to you...”

“It was him.” Barry spoke fast, the words forceful even through the pain meds.

“I believe you,” Joe answered almost as fast, before Barry could draw in a breath to lay out his entire argument.

It sucked the wind out of Barry. He sagged back, blinking, confused. “What?”

Joe moved right to the side of the little bed. He gripped Barry's hand and held tightly. “I believe you. The lightning in your house, the man in yellow. You being whisked half a mile away. I know you're telling the truth.” He swallowed. “I know Henry didn't kill your mom.”

Barry's mouth dropped open. He blinked, and his eyes were instantly bright with moisture. “What?”

Joe squeezed Barry's hand. “I'm sorry, son. I'm so, so sorry that I ever doubted you. I've been looking into your mom's case, trying to figure out...and I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't tell you _why_ I believed you and I knew you'd want to know. This whole situation...” He shook his head. “It's so damned complicated, but I can't...I can't let you struggle with this alone anymore.”

Eddie was equally startled, his eyes on his partner's back. He didn't interrupt their moment, but his mind was filling with a list of questions that suddenly needed asking. 

“We're going to find him, Barry.” Joe was sitting on the edge of the cot by then, clasping Barry's hand, leaning in to him. “You have help now.”

Barry broke down. He gripped Joe's hand with both of his, and though it must have hurt his ribs he sagged forward, burying his eyes against Joe's shirt. Joe's arm folded around him, holding him close. 

It had taken Eddie a while to get used to Joe West and his honorary son. Joe was a very honest man, especially about his emotions. He was quick with sincere words, open with praise, and he didn't bother restraining tears. Eddie saw him cry over Iris more times than he wanted to remember. And Joe had raised Barry very much the same way. Sometimes it was awkward – Eddie came from wasp parents who had typically tight-laced ideas about expressing emotion. But he envied the Wests, their openness with each other. It helped them get through what happened with Iris, no doubt, and God knew they'd had tragedies even before that. 

He stood back, stood guard, as Joe hugged Barry through his tears. He didn't look too closely – their raw emotions were like unbandaged wounds, and he was still adjusting to being exposed to it. But he listened, and waited. 

Maybe it was the drugs he was on, or the pain, but Barry seemed to get himself together fairly quickly. When he spoke it was muffled against Joe's chest, and thick with emotion, but Eddie understood the words from where he stood. 

“We have help, Joe,” he said, sounding dazed but fiercely, stunningly optimistic. “The Flash was there. She saved me. She went after him.” 

Joe drew back at that, suddenly tense. “What?”

Barry leaned back against the headboard of the little bed. His eyes were heavy-lidded. “I saw her. Not her face, but she was right there. She knows about him. She'll get him.” 

Eddie frowned at the mention of this strange half-described entity the papers and the news were always going on about the last few months, but he frowned even more at Joe's reaction to the words. He looked like somebody had physically shocked him. More telling, he actually pulled away from Barry and stood up. 

“I...just get some rest, Barry. I need to go make a call.” 

Barry hummed, already half-asleep as he lay back. 

Joe turned and strode for the door, stalling when he saw Eddie, like he'd forgotten his partner was there. “Can you keep an eye on him for a few minutes?” 

Eddie nodded easily. Barry was his friend, and he'd been through the wringer. But he met Joe's eyes, solemn. “We need to talk about all this.” 

Joe frowned, trying to pass him without responding. 

Eddie reached out and grabbed his arm. “Joe.” 

Joe hesitated, but nodded. He met Eddie's eyes reluctantly. “We'll talk.” 

Eddie let him go, and Joe vanished through the curtain like he was making an escape.


End file.
